Built in a Cave

This is Asteroid G’s regular column documenting the rise of superhero films in Hollywood. For the complete story, make sure to read the previous parts:

• Part 1: Batman '66
• Part 2: Superman '78
• Part 3: Wonder Woman '75 and the Incredible Hulk '78
• Part 4: Batman '89
• Part 5: Batman & Robin
• Part 6: Blade
• Part 7: X-Men
• Part 8: Spider-man

When thinking about the modern superhero genre, we’ve looked at each step in the process, every major release that (good or bad) helped shape Hollywood, pointing the direction towards superhero films as we know them today. We did already technically answer the question as to what film really gave us modern superheroes as we know them, and that answer was Blade, but superhero films continued coming out and evolving past that point, and as we saw with X-Men and Spider-man, the genre was learning its lessons and continuing to push forward, giving audiences what they wanted: more Marvel.

And so we come to the modern era itself, and it took one film, one Marvel movie specifically, to give us the current slate of superhero cinema that has effectively lasted since 2008. That film is, of course, Iron Man, and between writing and performances and what it set up to come, Marvel’s first film for their new future kicked off a massive revolution.

Put the Hammer to the Iron

To be clear, Iron Man pulled off a feat no one was expecting. For starters, it took a hero most hadn’t heard about before and made him not just cool but a rip-roaring, A-list, superhero star. While most wouldn’t have known who Iron ManBillionare Tony Stark has a secret: while he travels the world by day as a playboy philanthropist and head of Stark Industries, he combats the evils of the world as the armored Iron Man. was back when the first trailer debuted for the film in theaters, everyone was suddenly talking about him when his film came out. And that’s because the film does what so many other C-list superhero films at the time failed to do: they actually treated the character with respect.

A lot of that comes down to casting. Robert Downey, Jr. was at a low point in his career, rebuilding it after a string of drug incidents and time in prison. He was clean, had been for years, and was slowly reworking his reputation in Hollywood as someone that would put in the time and act the hell out of anything he was given (as proven by roles in both Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Charlie Bartlett). Marvel didn’t originally want him for the role of Tony Stark / Iron Man, but after a round of looking for other actors for the role, director Jon Favreau and co-star Terrence Howard fought for the actor and got him locked in. And, without a doubt, Downey, Jr. crushed it.

His performance as Tony Stark isn’t just movie defining, it’s career defining. Hell, considering he’s essentially the face of the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe., it’s universe defining. Even now, over five years since Tony was killed off (spoiler) in Avengers: Endgame, he’s still the face of the universe. Fans cheered when Robert Downey, Jr. came out at a convention dressed as Dr. Doom, promising a new take on that character for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. That all started here, in Iron Man. Before the massive crossovers and the shared, connected universe, there was Iron Man. This film birthed a universe.

There was every chance it wouldn’t have if the film were bad. An actor on the rise, a writer / director who was mostly known for mid-budget films and indie works, who’s last major film, Zathura: A Space Adventure, had flopped at the Box Office. And it was about a superhero that wasn’t anywhere near Marvel’s top famous characters. Sure, comic fans knew Iron Man, but not your average movie consumer. By this point, to stave off bankruptcy due to a downturn in comic sales in the 1990s. Marvel had licensed out all their big superhero names (thus why Sony was making SpidermanSure, DC Comics has Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but among the most popular superheroes stands a guy from Marvel Comics, a younger hero dressed in red and blue who shoots webs and sticks to walls. Introduced in the 1960s, Spider-Man has been a constant presence in comics and more, featured in movies regularly since his big screen debut in 2002. films and Fox was making X-MenLaunched in 1963 and written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the X-Men featured heroes distinctly different from those featured in the pages of DC Comics. Mutants who didn't ask for their powers (and very often didn't want them), these heroes, who constantly fought against humans who didn't want "muties" around, served as metaphors for oppression and racism. Their powerful stories would form this group into one of the most recognizable superhero teams in comics (and a successful series of movies as well). and Fantastic Four movies). Marvel had to go with the “bottom of the barrel”, such as it was, with the various AvengersMarvel's answer to DC's Justice League, this team features many of Marvel's biggest superheroes working together to protect the world and avenge its evils. they weren’t able to license out to anyone else. Iron Man was the best they had, so they rolled with it.

And by a miracle it worked. It worked really well. On a budget of $140 Mil (low at this point by high at the time, especially for an untested superhero that had never been on the big screen before) the film pulled in a solid $585.8 Mil. Making it a massive success for the burgeoning company. This was what Marvel wanted, and it gave them the chance to really follow through on their ambitious plan to slowly and carefully build a cinematic universe for all the superheroes they still had the movie rights to use.

But How Did It Redefine Superheroes?

On its own, Iron Man was just the first step towards something greater. It was a big step, and arguably the most successful step, of Marvel’s ambitions in what would eventually come to be known as Phase 1 of the MCU, but it was still just a step. What Iron Man proved, more than anything, was that Marvel’s heroes could work on the big screen even if they weren’t the famous ones like Spider-man or the X-Men. This wasn’t groundbreaking, though, because we’d already seen that before, with Blade. There was another C-list superhero (if Blade even rated that highly) who, with the right combination of style, substance, and tone, proved that a Marvel hero could work on the big screen. If anything, Marvel borrowed all the good ideas from that film and used them as lessons for Iron Man.

More than anything Iron Man was one brick in a bigger building. It was a step to greatness, and probably the most important one because if it had flopped then Marvel probably wouldn’t have had the success they did. Just imagine they decided to start their cinematic universe not with Iron Man but The Incredible Hulk, the second film they released, which also came out the same year as Iron Man. We’d already seen one Hulk film on the screen before, back in 2003, and if Marvel had said, “let’s try this again with the big green guy,” before they did anything else, it’s likely their nascent universe would have died before even getting born. The Incredible Hulk was a flop, both critically and financially, making only $265.5 Mil in theaters against a $150 Mil budget (which, by Hollywood math, means it actually lost money in theaters). It would have been hard for Marvel to come back from that.

No, Iron Man was the film they needed and, wisely, they launched it first. It debuted, made massive money, and it promised more to come via a cameo by Samueal L. Jackson’s Nick FuryIn Marvel's history there have been two characters to bear the name Nick Fury, father and son, both of whom fought for their coutry to protect the world. But it's the second, Nick Fury, Jr., who is famous as the head of SHIELD and backer of the Avengers. during the credits. This wasn’t just one film, Iron Man promised, it was something you’d never seen before: a connected universe of superhero films. “So stay tuned, comic fans!”

It’s Influence On the Future

Because of the success of this film, Iron Man gave us two things that would reshape Marvel’s ambitions for the future. First we got Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark. There are two characters that can really be considered the main characters of the first three phases of the MCU. One is Captain AmericaCreated by Simon and Kirby in 1941, Captain America was a super soldier created to fight Germany and the evil HYDRA. Then he was lost in the ice, only to be found and reborn decades later as the great symbol of the USA., as played by Chris Evans, who essentially carried the story of the universe through his various films. And there was Tony Stark, the breakout character of this film who could draw audiences into any other movie in the universe. Need to get people to see The Incredible Hulk? Sneak a Stark cameo into it. Need to launch a new hero for the universe, put Stark into Spider-man: Homecoming. Tony was their solution to everything… and it works. Hell, he even stole part of the spotlight from Cap, getting co-headlining duties in Captain America: Civil War. More than even Cap, Tony Stark was the universe.

The first was that the film proved viable enough to not just warrant a sequel, 2010’s Iron Man 2 (clearly rushed into production to capitalize on the success of the first film) but also the eventual crossover film to come: The Avengers. This film had to be a success to get us to that point, and that film was a massive success that made every other studio sit up and take notice of what Marvel was doing. Suddenly, because of The Avengers, everyone else had to have their own cinematic universe as well.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before we can address that we first have to look at the movie that cemented Marvel as a powerhouse for over a decade.

Next Time On…

And that naturally segues to the next film we’ll cover, the movie that showed you could build a bunch of superheroes separately and then mash them together into a bigger movie and make it a massive, unqualified, absolute, monster success. Naturally we have to address The Avengers.